Living a spiritual, creative & feminist life

No spending update

Well… so far, so good on the not spending.

I have to admit to reinstating my Audible membership as I was going on a long journey and I do like Audiobooks. I couldn’t decide if this was cheating or not, so I allowed myself to do it, as it was reinstating my membership rather than buying….. I think this probably classes as cheating, but I am not going to beat myself up.

I have bought tickets to go and see The Light Princess which has been written by my all time favourite artist – Tori Amos. I am obsessed with her and I cannot wait to see this show. But this is an experience and is always allowed!

I went out for a meal with my husband to celebrate his birthday – and this is an experience and allowed.

There has been some buying of stuff, but it was costumes for a client and so therefore isn’t out of my money and isn’t creating more stuff in my house. And the students were delighted at being allowed to keep them, so they are going to be reused a lot.

Little things like postage at the post office, but again, not a thing – but I hadn’t accounted for it when I set up the challenge.

A yoga class, a massage – they are allowed too. Massage seems very self indulgent, but I have come to the realisation that if I don’t have regular massages my body seizes up badly and becomes very painful. Rachel writes about this well. For me, it is not a nice gentle massage, but a deep tissue, combined with acupuncture which allows my body to function properly. It is not good when I don’t do this.

This has helped me so far in many ways. At the train station in Leeds I saw a bundle of magazines, which I picked up and I was almost at the front of the queue when I remembered I am not spending money at the moment on things, so I put it down and just bought the water (it was into the 13th hour of my day and I had drunk the two bottles I had bought with me and I still had a 4 hour journey home). I felt really quite proud of myself at this point I have to say!

It also means I just delete all the emails tempting me to buy stuff and throw the catalgoue in the recycling bin. This saves me time and thought processes.

Of course, I shouldn’t get too carried away, I am only on the 10th day of this experiment and there is still another 21 days to go – so plenty of chance to test my resolve. But so far, so good!